58 
ON SAFARI 
formed a solid black mass, inches deep, along the ridge¬ 
poles of our tents and in the angles of the roof. But at 
midday there was no escape. They crawled over hands, 
face and food alike ; swam in shoals in milk or coffee; 
buzzed in one’s ears and down one’s neck—one long 
buzz, buzz, buzz, bite and sting from dawn till dark. 
Thence another day’s travel took us on to the 
Baringo Plain. In four marches we had descended from 
8,000 ft. at the Ungusori camp to 3,500 ft. here; and 
social weaver-finch, with its 100-roomed nest. 
the reduced elevation was marked by corresponding 
changes in the heat, the vegetation and the bird-life, 
all three here assuming a tropical character. We had 
descended from regions of bracken and bramble to palm 
and tree-fern. Birds there were that we had never seen 
before—birds strange of form, of plumage and of flight; 
all then utterly unknown to me. There were gorgeous 
tropical types, as sunbirds and barbets, bulbuls with 
glorious flute-like note, heard both by day and last 
thing at night, and weaver-finches that filled whole trees 
with nests^—some containing eggs, others young, in 
